The ingestion of food is a necessity in order for an individual to survive. Many individuals are able to partake of food at a location of their own choosing. However, some individuals experience periods of confinement, during which food must be brought to them. For example, an individual may be confined to a hospital or nursing home bed. Or, an individual who is able to walk about their home may need a meal periodically delivered there, either due to their inability to prepare appropriate portions of food or perhaps due to economic hardship. Finally, there is the extremely large inmate population at correctional institutions, many of whom have their meals brought to their prison cell.
Regardless of the environment, food delivery systems have designed reusable food delivery trays for use in such situations. Due to the variety of foods served to these individuals at any one meal, the food trays have been partitioned so as to typically accommodate one type of food in each food retention area. The presence of individual food retention areas keeps syrups, juices, or sauces associated with any one product from coming into contact with an adjacent food selection, thus possibly adversely affecting the aesthetic taste associated with that food.
As noted above, one place where reusable food delivery trays are used is the corrections environment. Many correctional facilities have attempted to dispense food using buffets, or a cafeteria-style environment. Both of these methods for the delivery of food often result in food waste, since inmates may partake of just some of the foods available to them, leaving others virtually untouched, thereby contributing to waste. Another significant problem facing corrections facilities is that the feeding of individuals by either of these methods requires the congregation of individuals into large enough groups which raise security concerns. Therefore, the ability to feed individuals without them leaving their cell or area of confinement, as well as through the use of portion-control has been found to be extremely desirable.
A more perplexing problem concerns the simultaneous serving to such individuals on a food delivery tray of both hot and cold/room temperature foods. One example of prior art food delivery tray is a single plastic tray having molded therein a plurality of food compartments. Individual food portions are placed in each of the respective food compartments. These trays are stackable so that the bottom of a first tray effectively becomes the lid for a second tray stacked underneath. Typically this type of prior art tray is filled with a foam insulation to assist with the retaining of the heat associated with the hot foods, with the foam insulation further assisting with keeping the hot foods hot and the cold foods cold.
However, there are several drawbacks associated with this particular tray. First, the hot foods and cold foods cannot be prepackaged separately prior to placement in the food compartments. At best, while the cold foods may be placed in the food compartments ahead of time, the hot foods must be placed there just shortly prior to serving. Furthermore, in some correctional facilities, the opening in the cell door through which the tray must pass could be more narrow than the width of a given tray, therefore, necessitating the opening of the door, creating a possible safety risk. Still further, the fact that this particular tray has no lid once it is delivered to the individual who will actually eat the food, results in the immediate cooling of the hot food upon delivery, even though the individual may not be ready to begin eating at that moment. Thus, the possibility exists that food which once was hot could be cold by the time the individual actually begins eating.
Another proposed solution to this problem is the fabrication of a delivery tray having a number of compartments, with that particular tray system also having a second tray which is placed on the first tray, with the second tray containing only hot foods. This, second tray also comes equipped with a lid. The presence of the lid with the second tray allows the prepackaging of the hot foods, however, the fact that no such lid exists for the compartments dedicated to cold/room temperature foods precludes their prepackaging on the tray. Additionally, with respect to this delivery tray system, there is no provision made as to silverware, such that it must be supplied separately from the tray delivery system, thus requiring additional steps, time, and more work in the meal delivery process. Once again, an additional drawback is that the width of at least the cold/room temperature food tray may be too wide for some narrow openings in correctional doors. It is thus apparent that the need exists for an improved food delivery tray or the like for use with food delivery systems.